Electronic content publication systems are used to publish digital information items to a plurality of subscribing entities. The publication systems provide information items to multiple, physically separate computerized devices over one or more digital computer networks. These information items may include textual, numeric, or other forms of data, such as, stock quotes, financial data, weather reports, news items, etc. These information, or content, publication systems may be used to disseminate information from a variety of electronic content providers to a variety of subscribing entities (subscribers, vendors, partners), via the internet or other communications networks.
Industry-standard price assessments are a critical element of short- and long-term commodities contracts worldwide. This information may be published in textual form along with news, market commentary, fundamental data and other useful content. Several product and delivery vehicles may be utilized, such as real-time page-based “Alert” services, as well as end-of-day newswires/newsletters, traditional print newsletters covering different industry segments, or network based content publication services.
There are a number of challenges that content publication systems must overcome. For example, incoming data must be formatted, in some instances combined, and then associated with the appropriate subscribers entitled to receive that data (known as “packaging” the data). With certain types of data it is critical that each subscriber receive the same data at substantially the same time. Additionally, content publication systems must be able to recognize and deal with failures in information delivery. Furthermore, subscribers do not use the data in the same ways or run the same types of platforms making establishing a standardized data format difficult.
Existing systems store incoming data for later retrieval and dissemination. At certain intervals, the data is retrieved, associated with the appropriate subscribers, and delivered to subscribers. However, existing systems do not receive multiple types of data and package and distribute it in real-time, i.e., package and distribute a message in response to the receipt of an input data massage. Further, in existing systems, critical market data may be lost or dropped before being delivered to subscribers, due to, for example, network errors or problems with subscribers' servers. In the event that market data cannot be delivered to a subscriber, existing systems do not have the capability to preserve the data until it can be delivered.
Accordingly, there exists a need for an improved system and method for reliably delivering market data to a plurality of subscribers in real-time.